Flipping anti-social media

There’s nothing cheesy about social media. As a component of business communication it is becoming ever more important. Mastering your “voice” in the social realm can differentiate one business from another even more today than ever before. 

Case in point. People love to go to social media the second there is even the least little thing wrong with their experience somewhere. If the pattern on a team member’s shirt is just a bit off, the customer is out there using all capital letter to exclaim how they’ve been permanently and irreversibly harmed and how nobody should every patronize that business again.

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Well, perhaps that’s a slight exaggeration but people do love to voice their complaints. 

Here in my little corner of the world, a couple of local restaurant team members started a Facebook group to elicit positive reviews of their restaurants. Anyone who knows how social media works will understand that the positivity drained from the group almost right away 

First of all, the flaw in that plan. When the group was started, private groups wouldn’t show-up on Google search so there was literally zero benefit to tourism by being reviewed in this group. While I understand the desire to curate reviews of one’s establishment, it would be great if we all could get the Internet to drop the whacky reviews of our places, a private Facebook group isn’t the way to accomplish that. 

So now it’s mostly locals sharing their experiences with one another and there is some value to that. There are also some restaurant owners who monitor the group and, with almost 4300 members in a community of about 60,000 residents, this is probably a wise decision. 

Recently someone wrote a review of a new pizza place in town saying how much they enjoyed the product and the people of this place. Several responses later, an individual wrote that they bought two pizzas from the place and the toppings all slid off. 

With smart phones it’s relatively easy to monitor social media - between all the other activities it takes to run a new business it’s wise to check-up on what’s going on. Rather than “making time” to see what’s going on and create new posts smart phones allow you to take a moment here and there and make things happens. The co-owner of the new pizza place was doing just that and told the poster that they would make it right. 

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I was surprised to read another review where the person who had the complaint went into the pizza place and, sure enough, the new pizzas were exceptional. Now they have two good reviews on the group but, more importantly, a very satisfied customer. Furthermore, the group’s members see that the owner is keeping an eye on things and really cares. 

Often times in business it’s not as much how well you do things but, rather, how well you handle things when things don’t go well. Heck - I wrote this article about that. 

More and more social media in general, and Facebook in particular, is becoming part of the language of business. A well managed Facebook presence can really make or break how the public sees a business. While it might seem that it takes a lot of time, a few minutes here and there with a smart phone can truly be all it takes to effectively monitor the chatter and generate brilliant content. 

Oh, and one more thing. This same pizza place makes a Fat Tony’s Cheesy Gorgonzola pizza named after your author which is utterly fantastic. Not bad to name a pizza after someone who writes a blog about business marketing as well.
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Article and photos by Anthony B. Barthel

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